Sunday, June 20, 2010

GPS Tracking Software

GPS is the acronym for Global Positioning System. A GPS device, simply put, helps a user locate his or her exact position by using a special software called Gps tracking software.

GPS devices when they first came out were mostly used by defense units and airplanes for navigational purposes. Thanks to the ever evolving and improving Gps tracking software, today, GPS devices have become very handy even for common people, especially the visually challenged amongst us.

Choosing the right Gps tracking software can be tough-one, especially for those, who are not that conversant with GPS systems. Here is a quick run-down on some the features that a good Gps tracking software should have:

� A Gps tracking software should keep lists of data items like waypoints, routes, polylines, tracks, etc., whose information can be written to and read from text files and put into supported GPS receivers.
� A Gps tracking software should not only allow users to create new data items, but also modify and delete existing ones.
� A Gps tracking software should be able to record real-time track logging information that can be displayed on moving maps to create tracks.
� A Gps tracking software should support computations of waypoints, routes and tracks.
� A Gps tracking software should be able to make maps to scale using projections that show waypoints, routes, tracks and polylines. For such maps, the Gps tracking software must be able to make use of images as backgrounds, represent waypoints in different ways, show elevation graphs (as side-views or perspectives) and animate the movement along a real-time or a record track.
� Furthermore, a Gps tracking software should support data items searching by waypoints, symbols, start date and patterns matching the item name.
� And finally, a Gps tracking software should provide support for conversions between different position formats like latitude/longitude in DMS, DMM or DDD, etc.

Many Gps tracking software are available for free download from the internet, although most of them are for open source operating systems like UNIX or Linux. If you are planning to tryout a Gps tracking software, GPSMan would be a good one to start with.